Plenty of Nothing

The Glasgow Underground

Via @c_9.

Dundas, 2006

Osaka #247

The Edmonton Radial Rail Society maintains and runs a fleet of streetcars preserved from Edmonton's rail past, and from other cities in Canada and overseas, including #247 from Osaka, Japan. I originally learned about the railway and this expatriate Japanese streetcar at From Japan. There are more pictures here. Check this site for a map of Edmonton's streetcar network in its heyday.

Snow (1963)

Enjoy this wintry train film from 1963.

Japanese Word of the Day: Tetsudō

Do you love Japan? Do you love trains? Train stations? Train station signage? Departure boards? Tickets? Train tickets with a map of the route printed right on them? Pictures of train track? Then this site is the one for you.

(Tetsudō = railroad.) (Not to be confused with the Latin testudo = turtle.)

Raith Again

Princes Pier train station in the days of semaphore.

Greenock Morton entertain Raith Rovers today in a league match at Cappielow. Last weekend these two teams met at Stark's Park in the fourth round of the Scottish Cup and Morton won.

Q: I want to get from Kirkcaldy to Greenock to see the match. How would I do it by British Rail?

British Rail: Entrain at Kirkcaldy (KDY) Platform 2 at 11:19. Detrain at Haymarket (HYM) 11:50, and board the 12:00 to Glasgow Central (GLC). Detrain at GLC 13:09. Board the 13:35 to Cartsdyke (CDY). Detrain at 14:15. Walk 300m to Cappielow Park. The match begins at 15:00. Fare is £19.90.

Morton have won their previous two league games. If they win today they can consider themselves on a tear. The last time they won three league games in a row was November 2008.

Goals? Morton have scored 22 goals in 18 league matches so far this season. MacDonald has scored seven, Jackson five, O'Brien three, Di Giacomo and Weatherson two each, and Tidser, McGeouch and Campbell one each. How many goals were scored by substitutes? Three.

Here are some classic Morton songs.

Here's a handy Greenock Morton player database covering the years 1946-47 to 2010-11.

Greenock's history of railroad construction is amazing. In the nineteenth century three competing railroads carved up the town to get at the lucrative passenger steamship trade of the lower Clyde, leaving today's landscape a post-industrial tangle of disused tunnels and viaducts. See here, here and here. The earth removed from the Newton Street tunnel was used to make Battery Park, where Greenock Juniors sometimes play. How many train stations does a town of 45,000 need? Greenock has eight.

Hamilton beat Partick 1 - 0 yesterday and moved ahead of Morton, bumping them back to seventh.

[Morton 1, Raith 1. Goal by O'Brien. Morton ascend to fifth place.]

Amherst Train Station

Montreal Bridges

Renfrewshire Cup, Second Leg

Cartsdyke is the railway station of choice for those making an excursion to Cappielow Park.

Greenock Morton host St Mirren FC today in Round Two of the Scottish Communities League Cup, though get ready for a rematch of the Renfrewshire Cup, won in July by St Mirren for the sixth year in a row. Greenock's supporters should be extra obnoxious today.

This is the first match in this year's cup competitions where Morton face a superior team. If they are to win any silver this year they must knock off three or four of them. Morton are an improved team this year, but so are St Mirren. When did Morton and St Mirren last play in the same division? 1999-2000, in the First Division. Since them St Mirren have ascended to the Premier and Morton has dropped to the Third before rebounding to the First.

Morton have two players who were with St Mirren last season: Creag Little and Conor Ramsay.

[St Mirren win 4 - 3. Greenock goals by Tidser, MacDonald and Jackson. Morton is now out of the League Cup.]

Rail Yard II